‘Machine Logic: An Interview with Kirsty Boyle’
by Simon Sellars

Originally published in Jargon, summer 2001.

Kirsty Boyle is a researcher at RMIT’s Interactive Information Institute (I-Cubed), where she is developing her ‘Tele Operated Puppetry System’(TOPS), a tool utilising the net as a medium for controlling robots. Her work – creative, informative and practical – is infused with the idea of ‘open access’. For Kirsty, robotics should not be a technology solely for the pursuit of military and industry, but something anyone can access, for play, for fun, for emotion. Many of her projects implement ‘non- verbal communication’– gesture-based robotics to help us communicate across cultures – and her work has a strong educational focus.

What do you hope to achieve in robotics?

I’m aiming to broaden people’s perceptions of technology and what it can be. In doing so, I try to encourage creativity and experimentation. I’m highly influenced by the Japanese approach, awhere technology is looked at in a more humanising way – how it can be integrated into society and so on. There’s been a major trend within the robotics industry of using direct-voice commands to control robots, but what I’m interested in is visual, non-verbal communication. As an example, the Japanese have trouble with VRML(Virtual Reality Modelling Language) because their culture is so gesture-based. With VRMLyou can control virtual characters in ‘cyberspace’ and interact with others, but because it’s a new technology, it’s very limited – you can’t make your characters bow, for instance. But that’s obviously very important to the Japanese culture and the way they communicate, so that’s what I’m getting at: with the net and new technologies, we’re going to have to work out ways of communicating across cultures.

You’ll be teaching to children this year. What do you want them to get out of it?

I’ll be teaching basic robotics using Lego Mindstorms – kits for kids to design and program robots. I worked at Robocup last year with the Junior League, which involved kids building robots to play soccer, but I’m more interested in performance. Robocup has a ‘dance league’, which I’m pushing to become a more formal part of the tournament. I’d like it to be more performance-based so that people can choreograph short films with robots, or plays, or dances to music. Also, when I’m taking the course, I’ll be showing kids there’s so much household stuff that can be used for robotics and basic programming. For example, I can hook up my Nintendo Game Boy and use that as a wireless remote control for my Lego robot.

How is a Coke machine a robot?

They’re actually very sophisticated robots. They’re hooked up online to an ordering facility – that’s how the company knows when to refill them. And that’s what lot of these applications are being used for. It’s a shame because a lot of money is going towards military and government applications: autonomous killing machines, cleaning up nuclear accidents, taking bombs apart…

Do you find it hard to work against corporate/military mentalities?

In Australia it is notoriously hard to get around that. Its frustrating because at the same time we’re at the forefront of a lot of this new technology – Australians pioneered fibre optics, for example.

Tell me about I-Cubed.

It’s basically a media lab set up at RMIT, where we’ve got access to a lot of different resources – silicon graphics work stations running Unix, and things like that. They’ve also got a CAVE there, a Computer Aided Virtual Environment, which was recently used in developing the Docklands, demonstrating ‘fly-throughs’ of the area and so on. Basically I-Cubed provides facilities for people to develop ideas and projects – interactive, multimedia applications – and to help them find funding.

When did you realise you wanted to work with robotics?

About eight years ago. I started out making puppets for a few years, for TV commercials, art galleries and so on. (Puppetry is really the most basic form of interface command.) I then worked for the government, doing technical work, and from there I decided to take all that technical knowledge and get creative with it. The whole trend now is towards 3D stuff, but I’m fascinated by little objects – I like to be able to hold things and I guess that’s where the robots come into it.

Tell me about TOPS.

The idea is to provide an accessible way for people to control robots, in this case via the internet. Telepuppet robots will be made available to the public and internet users at an installation where anyone can play, interacting with other robots and other aspects of the project, in a non-structured play environment. TOPS will focus on the various feelings and emotions prompted by the styles, colours and symbols used in robot construction. The general design of the TOPS system will be based on the ‘karakuri’ philosophy, which dates back to the Edo period in 18th century Japan. Puppets, called ‘karakuri-ningyo’, had mechanisms fitted inside that made them move by themselves – the idea was to incorporate this technology not on the exterior, but invisibly in the interior, giving people a feeling of wonder and mystery. The robots of today can be seen as modern translations of the karakuri-ningyo puppets.

How far away is technology from completing an accurate humanoid robot?

A lot of people wonder why we haven’t got robots running around right now, but we’re just so far off from that stage. We can’t mimic the human spinal column and some of the trickier aspects of human behaviour. And a typical humanoid robot might weigh half a ton – if its arm broke off it could kill you! So we have to work around that.